Monthly Archives: April 2010

LOCHINVER has never really struck me as a haven of fine dining. Don’t get me wrong, I have not been there for many years, so it may well have a fine restaurant or two. However, now it has got itself an Albert Roux restaurant.

Knowing the Rouxs, I am sure it will be nothing short of superb, because I have bitter memories of one wet winter’s evening tramping around that particular port and completely failing to find a suitable place to eat. In fact, we failed to find any place within taxi distance of the stag party’s B&B.

I name drop because the legendary French father of modern cuisine and his brother, Michel, have both cooked for me.

It was at the opening of a hotel in Surrey. They popped in unexpectedly to endorse the proprietor and allowed themselves to be corralled into the kitchen to give the unsuspecting and unfortunate chefs a series of impromptu, if slightly loud, tips.

The result was an exquisite lunch for the press, most of whom had already been for a Big Mac with double fries and mayonnaise before they came down from London because they expected a long, boring, hungry shift. Not me, though. Loved it.

You thought you had some unsophisticated oik writing here each Monday, didn’t you? Not at all. I have been cooked for by the very best in their particular culinary field. And I don’t just mean the French, either.

So here’s a hot tip of my own. There is just time to try the very best of rustic Tuscan fare before the owner retires, so I recommend the Pot Del Caffè, a fine Italian eaterie which you will find at 5-7 Kenneth Street here in Stornoway. The genial proprietarios are Signor P. Scaramuccia and la moglie Mairi. Tell them I sent you. And tell them I said they should make you a rullo della pancetta affumicata. Mwah. You will not be disappointed.

Or, if you are really pushing the boat out for a special occasion or something like that, just tell the signor that you would like to sample his rullo con la salsiccia. Heavenly.

However, as I am on the subject of culinary delights, I did on Friday evening discover yet another magnificent eating place that if it was a commercial organisation would be up there with the Scaramuccias and the Roux brothers.

I was at that union where Garynahine and Plasterfield were joined in holy matrimony. Everyone was in great form. Reverend Stephen Macdonald, of Carloway, proved that he is probably the very best minister in Scotland at conducting weddings. His combination of humour and due ceremony put Joey, my sister-in-law, in such a tizzy that she did not wait for him to say to groom Aneas that he could kiss the bride. Fed up waiting, she just grabbed Aneas and snogged the bewildered fellow.

At the Breasclete hall, the community association are driven by some unfathomable desire to swell the girths of the guests at the festivities. It is probably some long-forgotten longing that is stirred in those who spend much of their lives in the shadow of the ancient megalithic puzzle that is the Callanish Stones. And on Friday, I have to report, they succeeded.

First, there was the dinner. I went for the smoked salmon thingummy and then the chicken in a whatch-youmaycallit sauce.

That particular three-course feast ended with dessert then coffee then cake, and other tasty stuff.

Then the dance. Even maws like me and Cudaig were persuaded to shake our thang. Kenny Callanish and his crew are obviously acutely aware that the Canadian Barn Dance, shaking our bits or just using your elbow in the bar are really very strenuous and energy-sapping activities. So they laid on a humongous and reviving mid-dance buffet.

The pudding had still not hit the bottom, yet there they were wheeling on to the floor tables groaning with finger food. High-end fare that you remember because you normally see it only in soft-focus as Nigella Lawson pushes it gently, ever so gently, through her immaculately-glossy lips. Actually, maybe that’s just me. Forget I said that.

Everyone looked at the tables of food and gasped. They thought: “Oh no. Couldn’t possibly. I’m still full. What are they thinking of putting all that food there at this time of night?”

Yet this was community entertaining, Breasclete-style.

They know that it does not matter whether you still feel full from your dinner, if someone comes and plonks down salvers of pates and skewers of chicken satay and baby sausages then you are going to try just one.

You are, aren’t you? Be honest. After all, it would be rude to snub the hard-working caterers sweating like galley slaves in the kitchen. They had obviously gone to a lot of effort.

And, finding “just one” somewhat moreish, everyone just flung their usual caution to the wind that blew gently off Loch Roag and dug in. Even a couple of calorie-counting waifs whose biggest meal in the past month had been a half-tub of cottage cheese with watercress on the side were filling their ill-fitting boots.

It was fantastic. Also on the plus side was the fact that it helped soak up the whisky and brandy that everyone seemed to be sipping so we would all feel better in the morning. Well, you don’t want to snub the hard-working bar staff. No no, that would just be rude, too.

I did have an anxious moment or two at the main meal. I was flapping about like a welly in a washing machine because I had a speech to make but, as that sticky toffee pudding slipped down, I felt that old familiar warm sensation spreading all the way down to the farthest and most delicate regions of my anatomy. Sheer bliss.

It wasn’t the pudding, though. I had just spilled the coffee into my lap.